I want to see Craig not sea containers.

I'm afraid folks it seems to be true. Long serving TV campaigns for carpet companies will never be the same again. Yes 'Craig' from Rugs-A-Million has gone off the airwaves. Disappeared behind a pile of heavily discounted carpets and hall runners. Never again will we hear the 'Owner' telling us he's 'Massively Overstocked' (cut to staff members stroking rugs and pretending to be customers) or 'Being forced at gunpoint to slash prices'. No more 'Sea containers' (cut to footage of sea containers just in case we don't know what they look like) will have 'Just arrived'. Course I'm hoping it's all just a cunning marketing plan by the agency who are giving the carpet retailing brand a new look. That Craig's indentical twin brother El Craigo from Mexico (Craig wearing a big fake tache and an oversized novetly sombrero)will be back to tell that once again he's going out of business. Craig Please come back. I miss you already!

Suits you Sir

If you’re feeling down and feel that sniggering at someone might help then can I suggest a trip to your local Westfield Shopping Centre. Chances are in these retail therapy filled days that you’ll found yourself wandering around one soon enough. My local is the ‘Carousel’ in Cannington. It would be a standard policy for a company like Westfield to deck their store ‘security’ officers out in uniforms giving them presence and gravitas. A form of shopping centre branding if you like to make consumers feel safe in their particular centres. Especially given the great packs of roaming disaffected youth wandering around these places on a late night shopping Thursday.

Now sadly for the security guards concerned these ‘designer’ uniforms are THE most ill-fitting clothes I have ever seen. I’ve yet to see any of the staff in ones that even vaguely fit their body shape. It would appear the original design and sizing of the jacket was done on Shrek. The sleeves are so long that Michael Phelps would be struggling to spot his hands poking out and you’d have to iron the thing on a frying pan to get the shape right. Thus a chance for Westfield to present their business as a professional brand with its customers safety concerns as a priority looks cheap and laughable. Which is a shame for Westfield and an even bigger shame for the poor sods who have to wear the uniform.

Snuggie

This spot has been knocking around for a while but just in case you haven’t seen it here it is. It’s impossible not to laugh. I tried and ended up in hospital with perforated eyeballs.

The Iron Curtain To The Tea Bags.

As I staggered though my local shopping centre the other day I paid my weekly visit to Coles supermarket. According to their corporate tagline we the punters should 'Love' them as opposed to those 'Fresh Food' people at Woolworths who presumably we only 'Like'. Anyway, as I entered the store I passed through one of those automatic gate/barrier things that both these grocery giants like to employ. Which made me ask the question 'Why the flamin' heck do they have those things?!!' I mean it seems they're actually trying to prevent their valued (apparently) customers entering the premises to spend our hard earned credit crisis cash. I can understand making it tricky to leave (especially if one has absent-mindedly or otherwise not paid) but why make the entry to their stores so unwelcoming? I go to my local Bunnings, K-Mart or Big W and there's usually someone standing there to welcome me in. "Hello Mr Ronan" they say. "Can we offer you a Laitte and a tasty Cinnamon bun"? OK maybe they don't actually say any of that but at least one feels welcome. Not so with a steel bar across the entry.

11 IS 'One Louder' Slash!

Ford or Holden? City or United? Dockers or Eagles? Personally I couldn’t give a valid opinion or any of these BUT ask Fender or Gibson? and my piggy little eyes light up and I’ll start to babble. When it comes to guitars and the brands us guitarists love then it’s an argument likely to be as hotly debated as the rightly ownership of the Falkland Islands between an Argentinean and a Brit… Personally I am a Fender man. I won’t go into boring spodish detail but to my ear and eye their design is perfection. The more brute-like Gibson’s have their rightful place in the pantheon of rock guitars but they just don’t have the flexibility of a Fender. I mean if it was good enough for Jimi Hendrix then it’s good enough for me. Which is what any ad for Fender should be telling prospective buyers. Either way here a spot for Mastercard….



B

Australian Retail Heavyweights "Battle of the Brands'

Nowhere is the power or the strength of an exclusive brand portfolio more apparentthan on the Australian high street as the country's department store heavyweights battle it out the secure a winning brand portfolio. The feeding frenzy over exclusivity of the brands ranged is far from over. Two heavy hitters Myer and David Jones are fighting it out - brand by brand. Rumour has it that Speedo, Jets, Gorman,See by Chloe and Philosophy by Alberta Ferretti, and children's brand Fred Bare have all left Myer for Jones town! viva le brand!

Plenty more where this came from.

There’s no shortage of ‘average’ ad’s on TV. The ones that just pass you by. And of course all too rarely the better ones that actually make a connection. Then there’s the total stinkers. The ones that make you wish you’d been a fly on the wall at the meeting between the agency and the client when the following little beauty got the big thumbs up…..

Shirt Sponsor United

There can’t have been too many Manchester Utd fans who didn’t shake their heads in dismay when they hear American owner (Malcolm Glazer) refer to their beloved football team as a ‘Franchise’. OK he’s not wrong. That’s what all the big clubs around the world are. And if not that’s what they want and indeed need to become. You can get Man Utd TV and clothing so we can be fairly certain that a Man Utd washing machine, perfume range and holiday company are all around the corner. Just think ‘Virgin’ but with football boots and flashy dyed hair. Actually Branson already has that second one...

Anyway, it’s a commercial fact of today’s football but for most football fans it does tend to distract from the passion of the game itself.

Which leads me to the current West Ham Utd shirt. Now I’ve been a ‘Hammer’ fan for as long as I can remember and more than happy to wear the replica shirt (Made in China for $0.50 and retailing in shops here for $180.00...) I’m wearing that shirt because of that little West Ham emblem on the left hand pocket corner. Not because of the vast ‘XL Holidays’ logo that totally dominates the entire front of the shirt. Shirt sponsorship has been around for ages (though hats off to Barcelona who have always refused to have shirt sponsors and now have a five year deal with ‘UNICEF’ which for a sport staggering in cash is a commendable way to go). And not doubt to pay those outrageous players wage demands West Ham needed a deal that would pay big money and XL Holidays obviously wanted maximum exposure.

But when it comes to brands then there’s always that danger of ‘devaluing the currency’. And having your club brand logo totally dominated by the current shirt sponsor does just that. Anyway, I shall wear my shirt with pride as always next season but should I need to book a holiday then XL Holidays won’t be top of my list. Maybe give Man U a call and see what packages they’re offering this year…..

Wasted Opportunites

It’s chilling (from a marketing perspective) how great opportunities go begging. A friend of mine manages a busy paint retail store which is part of a national chain. The shop is located on one of Perth’s busiest roads and it’s daily exposure to all those potential customers is as endless as the tail-lights of the cars crawling past during the rush-hour to and from the city. The company has its own in-house marketing team who have recently been given lashings of cash to spend on re-branding the stores. TV, magazine, radio have all been used plus in this case use of billboards. This one was located a couple of streets away from the store in a location that at best was ‘OK’ish’.

We’re done bill-boards here at Mammal and know that done right they are very effective. The billboard was fine but of course even the most lavish budget meant that after a few brief weeks it’s time was up. I mentioned seeing the billboard to my friend and he informed me that none of his customers had actually seen the billboard. He then went on to say that despite his store’s prime exposure for passing traffic it had remained painted with the old brand colours and signage for about six months. Six months! That’s half a year totally wasted! There was no apparent reason for this other than that familiar ‘big company’ problem of moving slowly when it comes to organizing things. Apparently no pressure was applied by the marketing team to hurry things up as they were focused on their own thing. All that money spent by the whizzo marketing team and yet an opportunity to use the FREE advertising area of the store itself totally wasted!

My point is that it’s all too common for ad guys to only focus on their part of the business. Their ‘specialist’ skills meaning they can remain oblivious to the broader business as a whole. Producing fine, groovy ad campaigns is one thing but it’s another to be aware of the business in a general sense and to make it your business to damn well find out and know what’s going on! Makes me stamp my little feet it does!

Sherman

Here at Mammal we must confess that we are 'Ben Sherman' kinda guys. It's retro that won't date. Sure the skinny 80's jeans and side-swiped mullet hair-do's are fine as retro 'today' but of course it won't last. A decent Ben Sherman shirt lashed with a smart Mod' ish attitude will not go out of date. I'm not saying we should all be dressing like Paul Weller but it's a brand that remains a 'constant'. And I hope it stays that way. As for every Ben Sherman there's a 'Converse' who now must make hay while the sun shines as it won't last. Sherman however, as long as it remains on the side-lines will keep it's alt-cool appeal. especially for us old gits. Anyway, I like this ad. It's a bit wayward and oddly doesn't really have the 'essence' of Sherman but it's oddness and humour is enough to keep it cool..Enjoy!

Official car of The Sith

Jeremy Clarkson’s ‘Cockometer’ rarely fails. He might scale pretty high himself on some occasions but generally when it comes to how much of a errrrrr…’Thingy’ you look while driving along The ‘Cockometer’ is up there with the Richter Scale as an effective measurement. He says:

'The Saab has no cockometer because it doesn’t need one. You’ve deliberately gone your own way, deliberately bought something that isn’t a BMW or a Merc or an Audi. And in the process you’ve ended up with something that’s not only a little bit different, but also rather good.'

Course, being a Saab driver I already knew this. I got my serviced yesterday at a Saab specialist and seeing all those assorted Saabs together in one place was, for the Saab lover, akin to chancing upon a flower strewn woodland clearing with families of pure white Unicorns frolicking around. OK that’s a tad strong on the waxing lyrical front but you get my point. There are such wonderful cars and the undying strength of the Saab brand makes it impossible not to know with every sense of your being that you ‘Belong’. Which, leads me rather neatly to Star Wars. Of which I’m also a fan. Another equally undying brand that will never fade away. The combination of the two is naturally almost too much to bare…..

Vaccum cleaner Ad's that don't suck....

I bet James Dyson saw this and wept.....

Researching Retail Brands (RRB) - Shopping!

A day of retail therapy awaits - brand retail research, okay - shopping!